History Literature / TheCompanyNovels

%% * VillainEpisode: ''The Children of the Company''

* WorkingForABodyUpgrade: The Company's immortal cyborgs are recruited at a young age (typically in a precarious situation) and offered rescue from the immediate crisis as well as immortality and a future place in a utopian project. Mrs. Corvey in the ''Nell Gwynne'' stories is also technically a cyborg and likewise was recruited via body upgrade. She lost her eyesight as a child laborer and was found by the Company's front organization the Gentleman's Speculative Society. In exchange for working for them, they gave her a better life, cured her syphilis, and replaced her nonfucntional eyes with ElectronicEyes that not only allow her to see perfectly, but also have telescopes and night vision built in.

* RidiculousFutureSequelisation: An anglophilic character a few centuries in the future has memorized the names of all three-hundred-and-some actors to play the Doctor.

%% * APirate400YearsTooLate: Alec Checkerfield

%% * BrainUploading: The Company does this to some historical figures. [[spoiler: And for Adonai "brothers.]]

%% * BattleButler: Sir Henry Morgan

%% * RichIdiotWithNoDayJob: Alec Checkerfield

* AndIMustScream: Since Immortals can't die, this is used to get rid of them instead.

* BadFuture: 2355. (Or at least an enigmatic, and thus worrisome, point in time.)
* BattleButler: Sir Henry Morgan

* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: [[spoiler: William Randolph Hearst.]]

* BilingualBackfire: Mendoza knows exactly what the gondolier is saying about her, and tells him what he can do with his pole.
* BrainUploading: The Company does this to some historical figures. [[spoiler: And for Adonai "brothers.]]
* TheCaligula: Labienus became one when he was put in charge of organizing the tribes of Mesopotamia into a nation.
* CloakAndDagger: Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax

* CoolBoat: A futuristic time-traveling one designed by a pirate enthusiast!
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Any Company employee with a rank higher than Facilitator. And some of the Facilitators are pretty sleazy, too.

* FatalAttractor: Mendoza, [[spoiler: only in her case they're all the same guy with different upbringings.]]

* GambitPileup: 2355, many of the events leading up to it, and really Dr. Zeus operations in general. Played with in the fact that most of it seems predestined anyway.
** Specifically, everybody knows the exact date in 2355 that marks the unknown future. So they all plan their coups and purges and revolutions to take place on that date.

* TheHedonist: Houbert, the Executive Facilitator of New World One.
* TheHeretic: Nicholas Harpole. Why yes, he died via KillItWithFire, too.

* IHaveManyNames: The Company. Most of its name follow a Greek mythology theme.
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy - Lewis and Victor.

* ImmortalityBeginsAtTwenty
* ImmortalProcreationClause [[spoiler: subverted later on with Mendoza in a very strange way.]]
* LastMinuteHookup: Latif and Sarai, [[spoiler: Hearst and Tiara.]]
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters

* MeanwhileInTheFuture: without SanDimasTime.
* MegaCorp: Doctor Zeus, Inc.

* MyGrandsonMyself: Porfirio (when convenient) and [[spoiler: Hearst]]

* OedipusComplex: happens to Nicholas and Alec [[spoiler: for good reason, when your girlfriend becomes your mother, and your romantic rival is the one responsible for that particular wacky happening. And the guys remember from the getgo what Mendoza was to them before they got reborn.]]
* OnlyOneName

* APirate400YearsTooLate: Alec Checkerfield

* {{Polyamory}}: [[spoiler: how Mendoza resolves her man problems.]]
* PsychicPowers: Crome's radiation, supposedly.

* RichIdiotWithNoDayJob: Alec Checkerfield

* SendInTheClones: the Adonai project

* TheSlowPath: Back Way Back

* UsefulNotes/TheSpanishInquisition: Mendoza's backstory
* StableTimeLoop
* TimeyWimeyBall
* VillainEpisode: ''The Children of the Company''
* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Mendoza.

* WhoWantsToLiveForever: Several of the cyborgs.
* YouCantFightFate: Stated as a rule and used at numerous points.

* GrayAndGrayMorality: The official philosophy of the Company operatives, who blame fanatics who believe in BlackAndWhiteMorality for much of humanity's suffering. The novels themselves are a good example, contrasting: a.) [[GoodIsImpotent the normal company operatives]], who are programmed for self-presevation and can't intervene to change history; b.) [[WellIntentionedExtremist Budu and his cohorts]], who will mercilessly execute you if and only if you're violent; and c.) Nicholas' various incarnations, who all have [[GodComplex complicated plans]] to help humanity that [[MyCountryRightOrWrong tend to]] [[YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters back-fire]] spectacularly. Once [[PlagueMaster Labienus]] shows up, this turns into BlackAndGrayMorality.

''The Company'' sequence of novels and short fiction takes place in a ScienceFiction [[TheVerse universe]] created by KageBaker. They involve {{Time Travel}}ing agents in the employ of Dr. Zeus Inc., and the various political maneuvers and conspiracies surrounding them.

** The Immortality Process only works if the subject receives it in infancy(one account says the Company has never even ''attempted'' to immortalize a subject who had lost even one milk tooth), which is why it's only used on Company employees. A less effective (but more widely applicable) variation is marketed as geriatric medicine.

* BeenThereShapedHistory: Dr Zeus either causes or directly profits by a number of major historical events.

* Time travel itself does ''[[TimeIsDangerous horrible]]'' things to organic material, and that's before you factor in the ButterflyOfDoom.
* The Immortality Process only works if the subject receives it in infancy(one account says the Company has never even ''attempted'' to immortalize a subject who had lost even one milk tooth), which is why it's only used on Company employees. A less effective (but more widely applicable) variation is marketed as geriatric medicine.
** ''Combine'' the two, and you can loot the past very profitably thanks to immortal slaves taking TheSlowPath back.

* AwesomeButImpractical: The Immortality Process only works if the subject receives it in infancy(one account says the Company has never even ''attempted'' to immortalize a subject who had lost even one milk tooth), which is why it's only used on Company employees. A less effective (but more widely applicable) variation is marketed as geriatric medicine.

'''The Company''' sequence of novels and short fiction takes place in a ScienceFiction [[TheVerse universe]] created by KageBaker. They involve {{Time Travel}}ing agents in the employ of Dr. Zeus Inc., and the various political maneuvers and conspiracies surrounding them.

* ''Mother Ægypt and Other Stories'' (collection, 2004) (title story features the Company)

* AwesomeButImpractical: The Immortality Process only works if the subject starts at a very young age, which is why it's only used on Company employees. A less effective (but more widely applicable) variation is marketed as geriatric medicine.

* SpyCouple: Edward and Mendoza [[spoiler: later, Edward/Alec/Nicholas and Mendoza]]

* DyingLikeAnimals: Various types

* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy - Lewis and Victor.

* {{Fiction 500}}: The Company pretty much owns the world by the mid-24th century, thanks to their TimeTravelingForFunAndProfit.

* ComboPlatterPowers: Company cyborgs are TheAgeless, can heal FromASingleCell, have SuperStrength and SuperSpeed, have modifies brains grant them PhotographicMemory and the capacity to become {{Instant Expert}}s, and are equipped with a variety of SuperSenses.

* CorruptCorporateExecutive

* FromASingleCell

'''The Company''' sequence of novels and short fiction takes place in a ScienceFiction [[TheVerse universe]] created by KageBaker. They involve [[TimeTravel TimeTraveling]] agents in the employ of Dr. Zeus Inc., and the various political maneuvers and conspiracies surrounding them.

* TheSpanishInquisition: Mendoza's backstory

* EverythingsBetterWithChocolate: chocolate (i.e. theobromos) is the one thing that can make an immortal operative drunk.